Down From the Mountains
by Hlessirah
Summary: Second fic from the author of The Story of the Snicket Siblings.What happens when the two powderfaced women set off together to leave their life of villiany behind? How will they face the challenges that await them?
1. Chapter 1

In the hinterlands, there is a lonely, forgotten mountain known by many as Mount Fraught. She has always envied her sisters to the south: popular peaks that are the sites of only happy occasions, such as pleasant hikes, midday picnics, and starry moonlit nights. Alas, Mount Fraught can boast no such pleasantries. Instead, she has freezing temperatures, vicious snow gnats, and only one lonely festival a year that takes place at the false spring. I'm sorry to say that it is atop this lonely peak that this story begins.

It was at the height of the false spring, a time where the snow melts for a short time only to glumly return to its former frozen state, that two women, with faces as white as their surroundings, trudged silently down the mountain.

They walked together, as they always did, and pondered their fate. Shell-shocked, they remembered their own words in silence. The slighter one, who only went by the name Tocuna, had only muttered the word "no" earlier, but that "no" echoed through her head inceassantly, refusing to go away. That "no" had lead them there; because she had said that word, the both of them were walking down this desolate mountainside away from a terrible villain, away from all the fires, away from a struggle, and farther away from everything that was familiar to her and her companion.

The wind was biting at her skin, but she was past caring. She just walked on, staring at nothing, with her companion at her side, surely and steadily going nowhere.

That same night, only after the sun had left the dreary sky, the other pale woman, known as Flo, sat in the dim light of the dying embers that was once a small campfire. She poked at it a bit with a stick, watching it give off a few frail sparks. Next to her, Tocuna was lying down on the hard floor, asleep, with a small smile on her face. In the flickering light, Flo lovingly swept a few strands away from her sister's face and smiled sadly.

For as long as Flo could remember, the two sisters had always been inseparable; Flo had never seen a photograph of either of them apart. "Thick as two thieves", people used to call them, "like two peas in a pod". Even with their separate personalities, the sisters fit together like puzzle pieces. Flo was the oldest and was always sad and serious, while her sister was noted for her cheery disposition.

Even after all that had happened to them, Tocuna had tried to keep her sister's spirits high, but Flo could tell that the terrible events that they had to endure were wearing even on Tocuna's spirit. As Flo gave the fire one last jab with her stick before she leaned back against the hard wall to try to sleep, she made herself a promise.

_As soon as we get down from this wretched mountain, I'll protect her so she'll never be unhappy again._

**Author's note!**

**So, yeah, this is my second real story that I'm actually putting effort into. I'm not sure what I intend to do with this one, but at least it has an okay first chapter, right? I hope all my loyal reviewers from "The Story of the Snicket Siblings" will follow this one and enjoy it as well as the last one!**

**This whole story is dedicated to my older sister, Sarah. I love her more than anything, and I don't know what I'd do without her. **


	2. A Sleepless Night

Around Flo, ice was everywhere. She found herself suddenly immersed in a bleak, white wasteland, where everything was frozen. She looked around for someplace to shelter herself from the cold, but to her horror, the flat ground stretched out endlessly before her, with no sign of any help at all. Her breath came harder and she shuffled as quickly as her frozen feet could take her until she tripped over something.

She looked down only to see the figure of her sister, frozen and half-buried in snow, at her feet. Flo fell to her knees, sobbing, clawing at the snow. She tried desperately to dig out her sister's frozen form, but when she touched poor Tocuna, the snow fell harder around her, and Flo could only sit there, helpless, until she felt the deadly cold creep up her own hand, her arm, until finally, in a fit of desperation…

Flo woke up.

She sat up and brushed the frozen tears form her face. Her shaking began to subside when she realized that she was still in the cave with Tocuna, who was still sleeping next to her. Flo found her small blanket, which had fallen off, and pulled it closer to her shoulders. She smiled at her sister as a cold wind rushed through the dark cave. Tocuna had begun to shiver at the touch of the frozen breeze, and she began to mumble restlessly in her sleep.

Flo made one more futile attempt to stoke their meager fire, and laid her own blanket on her sister's shoulders. When she laid back down on the cold stone floor, she began to shiver again, but she didn't care. Tocuna was fine; that was all that mattered.


End file.
